Nikon D600 a compromise but ok

In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

It really is. Since everyone seems to allow their wifi station to pick
the channel (based possibly on the traffic at that time and then no
longer changing) I'm better off alone at 8 or 9. I get splashed to be
sure, but not near as bad as if I stay on 1, 6 or 11.

You get interference, if you choose Channel 8, from anyone that chooses
any channel from 4 to 12.

depends how far away they are.

If you choose Channel 11 the only other choices
that will affect you are those from 7 on up. All you have done by choosing
Channel 8 is perhaps double the amount of interference.

based on that, then 1 and 11 can be the only choices.

choosing 6 means 2-10 can cause interference, which is almost the
entire band.

When there's little other traffic I can xfer at a steady 48 to 64 Mbps.
When there's a lot of other stations up, it drops to less than 8 for
50% of the time and no better than 24 for the rest. (And often the rate
is in the handful of kB/s range).

It also depends a lot on one or 2 neighbors and whether they've got the
whole house on WiFI. From here I can see 8 other WiFi stations using
2.4 GHz WiFi - that translates to how many clients... 10, 20? More?

Not really. Compare the signal strengths and simply ignore anything that is
10 dB lower than what your own signals are. Generally you'll find that most
of the other stations you see on a scan are actually too weak to be of any
significance.

if they're too weak to be of significance, then it doesn't really
matter what channel you or anyone else picks, does it?

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

i didn't think it needed explanation. it's obvious what automatic
means. with all the networking experience you say you have, i'm
surprised you even asked, and given your propensity to nitpick and
argue, i assumed you were playing word games.

Because such an "automatic" is not normally used in commercial
setups.

that means your knowledge about networks is limited.

Yeah, sure. Keep trying kid.

It may sound good to home owners, but it's not a good
idea at all.

it's actually a very good idea because most people have no idea what
channel to pick and will probably leave it at the default, which means
everyone will be on the same default channel and cause more problems
for each other.

That's no worse that what you are proposing!

having the selection be automatic spreads it out, without the user
having to figure out what to do. not everyone is a geek. most aren't.
even many of those who are geeks probably don't know what to pick.

All it has to be is a default to an "auto" mode that switches
between only three channels unless some other option in chosen.

Simple, easy...

Whatever, if it does not allow restricting the AP to
*only* channels 1, 6 and one more greater than 9, it's
dumb.

wrong again.

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

You clearly haven't understood the significance of the bandwidth used
by a WIFI unit. Any other choices simply *increase* the interference.

nonsense.

Serious business actually.

anything 5 channels or more apart will not cause interference (actually
less in the real world but i'm sure you'll disagree). it certainly
won't increase it if you pick something other than the magic 3
channels.

Sigh. I drew a graphic and made a chart previously that showed *precisely*
what the channel separation is.

The simple fact is that yes it will increase interference if you choose
anything else.

It makes no difference what your neighbors do,

it most certainly does.

choosing Channel 3 is
*never* a reasonable choice. Never!

absolutes always have exceptions.

Except in the real world.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

It really is. Since everyone seems to allow their wifi station to pick
the channel (based possibly on the traffic at that time and then no
longer changing) I'm better off alone at 8 or 9. I get splashed to be
sure, but not near as bad as if I stay on 1, 6 or 11.

You get interference, if you choose Channel 8, from anyone that chooses
any channel from 4 to 12.

depends how far away they are.

No, it depends on the signal strength relative to the
desired signal.

If the signal strength for all other users total is
equal to greater than 6 dB less than the RSL of the
desired signal, you will have interference.

That is, if there is one signal on Channel 8 and it is
-6 dB or greater compared to your signal, you get
interference. If there are two signals they can both be
-9 dB below the desired signal, and you will get
interference. If there are four signals the threshold
is -12 dB, and so on.

If you choose Channel 11 the only other choices
that will affect you are those from 7 on up. All you have done by choosing
Channel 8 is perhaps double the amount of interference.

based on that, then 1 and 11 can be the only choices.

Channels 1, 6 and 11 will not interfere with each other.

choosing 6 means 2-10 can cause interference, which is almost the
entire band.

That is exactly the reason to assign 1, 6, and 11.

If you choose Channel 6, there is a 22 MHz spectrum
centered on the 5 MHz bandwidth of Channel 6 that is
used. That uses the total (15 MHz) bandwidth of
Channels 5, 6 and 7, plus 3.5 MHz from each of Channel 4
and Channel 8.

Channel 1 can also be used, and it will use bandwidth
below that channel, up into the lower 3.5MHz of Channel
3.

Channel 11 can be used, because it will use bandwidth
down to the upper 3.5MHz in Channel 9.

Hence Channels 1, 6 and 11 can all be used
simultaneously on a non-interfering basis. Three
channels at once.

If you use any other set of channels between 1 and 11
there is no other combination that allows 3 channels at
once. Any other combination will allow only 2 at once.

Once again:

Assigned channel bandwidths Interferes with
Channel used Assigned (bandwidth)
1 nc, nc, 1, 2, 3 Clear Channel
2 nc, 1, 2, 3, 4 1 (channels 1-3) 6 (channel 4)
3 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 1 (channels 1-3) 6 (channels 4-5)
4 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 1 (channels 2-3) 6 (channels 4-6)
5 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 1 (channel 3) 6 (channels 4-7)
6 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 Clear Channel
7 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 6 (channels 5-9) 11 (channel 9)
8 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 1 (channels 6-10) 11 (channels 9-10)
9 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 1 (channels 7-11) 11 (channels 9-11)
10 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 1 (channels 8-12) 11 (channels 9-12)
11 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Clear Channel

There is no way to provide clear channel operation for 3 channels between
1 and 11 with any combination other than 1, 6, and 11.

When there's little other traffic I can xfer at a steady 48 to 64 Mbps.
When there's a lot of other stations up, it drops to less than 8 for
50% of the time and no better than 24 for the rest. (And often the rate
is in the handful of kB/s range).

It also depends a lot on one or 2 neighbors and whether they've got the
whole house on WiFI. From here I can see 8 other WiFi stations using
2.4 GHz WiFi - that translates to how many clients... 10, 20? More?

Not really. Compare the signal strengths and simply ignore anything that is
10 dB lower than what your own signals are. Generally you'll find that most
of the other stations you see on a scan are actually too weak to be of any
significance.

if they're too weak to be of significance, then it doesn't really
matter what channel you or anyone else picks, does it?

Not until someone close enough to actually have a
greater signals strength cranks up their AP, and then
you are toast if you picked the wrong channel!

You can weasel all you like, but technically there is
only one right way: choose one of channel 1, 6 or 11.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:

It's something that works just fine if there are only
one or two being used. But just imagine a PJ showing up
at a press conference expecting rapid transfer of
images... and discovering that there are 47 other PJ's
with wireless enabled. Oppps.
[...]

In which case you would be able to show us the math and the
circumstances, under which that would not be true.

Stunning silence.

[...]
Apparently I hit it just about on the head with the 48
PJs.

So ... which press conference was that?
Or did you pull that number from your ass?

From your ass it is!


If the bit rate works out to 4x, then it's
probably just about the right number. There is *never*
going to be a smooth transition between any two of the
48 clients.

Obvious. None of the cameras are interested in talking with
another camera. And that being true there will never be any
kind of transaction, smooth or otherwise, between any 2 of the
48 clients.

Nobody said "transaction"... it's the *transition* from
one client to the next that will never be smooth.

.... reading too fast and not concentrated enough. My fault.

There
will never be a time when at least 10 or so clients are
not trying to get access.

And that's lowering the individual thoughput by a factor 400?
(WLAN netto speed, single user, 54 MBit/s brutto versus
dialup modem brutto speed of 33.6 kbit/s upload)

Unless one of them has a
received signal strength that is more than 6 dB greater
than the sum of the others, the AP cannot detect a
single client.

The way it works:
Stations listen if the channel is free, and have random
timers (the more collisions, the larger) which cause most
packets to not be involved in a collision. (It's actually
more complicated than that, but read yourself ...)
http://www.comlab.hut.fi/studies/324...ot/4_wlan2.pdf

The upshot is: There's no "the sum of the others".

In fact, even with a CW_{Backup} of only 32 (i.e. set for rather
few collisions, it can ramp up to 255) the chance of collision is
50% with 16 active stations and 63% with 35 active stations.[1]

So none of them get a connect, they all
time out and take a random sleep.

Only one will talk, and in most cases it will get through.
And if not on the first try, then on the second, third of fourth.

Of course by that
time another group is ready (after waiting for a random
period), and the story repeats itself.

Yep, all the group of 10+ clients has each RANDOMLY choosen one
and the same period of time --- and will do so every time!

That's why it's called RANDOM!

Eventually luck
might allow one client to connect. That is going to work
to some degree up to 4 clients per channel, but with more
than that the chances of any client actually getting a
connection start to be very slim.

So how exactly do you arrive at 4 clients per channel?

Pulling data from your ass?

Especially when 4-5 clients give the best combined throughput
rate for TCP traffic for a 54 MBit connection?[1]

You did pull them out of your ass, didn't you?

In fact, 48 *active* clients on 3 channels have a combined
throughput of 45 MBit/s of data (with all the TCP overhead and
WLAN overheads and timeouts and retries and collisions already
taken care off), so each PJ has 960 kbit/s.[1]
A modem is 33.6 kbit/s.

Do your math ...

Instead there will virtually always be
contention, and instead of being 4 times faster than a
dialup, it would probably be about 10 times slower... at
best!

So 3 channels at 54 MBit/s can't keep up with 48 clients which
sporadically try to pass data through them to the outside.

Correct.

Hmmm. [1] says something very different.
He
http://serverfault.com/questions/192...le-wifi-router
is someone connecting 60 iPads over 3 channels.

Whom to believe? Those who have facts and others that have mathematical
models congruent with yet other people's tests and experiences,
or ... you ...?
Tough question, innit?
But then maybe you do get 48-PJ-news conferences pretty regular
up in Barrow ... who knows?


I see.

Probably not, because you don't seem to know how it works or why
and have no interest in learning eitehr.

I'll await your "OK, I *was* completely wrong on all of my
claims, including the WiFi and the learning!" admission.


I've even given you real sources to learn for yourself, since you
don't seem to *know* how it works or why (and use superstitions
instead --- you've obviously either not heard of CSMA/CA or failed
to grasp what it's doing).

I'll reserve the call on you having "no interest in learning"
till I've seen how you react to cold, hard facts. (Yes, I'm
an optimist!)


I wonder how they managed with 10 MBit ethernet and a bunch
of computers on the same cable ...

Ever wonder why they developed routers and switches?

Ever wonder why they developed faster WLAN speeds than 2 MBit/s?
Not because WLAN didn't work ...

PS: Unless you can provide proof, it's EOD.

Poor kid.

I'm poor, 'tis true, but at least I have a home and *can*
offer facts. I'm giving you some facts for free, seeing you're
sleeping under a brigde and don't seem to have any facts,
only (often very wrong) assumptions.

-Wolfgang

[1] http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/201207/20120704.pdf

On 2012.09.25 23:19 , nospam wrote:

if they're too weak to be of significance, then it doesn't really
matter what channel you or anyone else picks, does it?


What matters is what gives, in the end, the fastest data transfers.

That's channels 8 or 9 here. Though there's only one fellow on 11 today
and pretty weak here so I'll switch and we'll see how that goes.




--
"There were, unfortunately, no great principles on which parties
were divided – politics became a mere struggle for office."
-Sir John A. Macdonald

In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

i didn't think it needed explanation. it's obvious what automatic
means. with all the networking experience you say you have, i'm
surprised you even asked, and given your propensity to nitpick and
argue, i assumed you were playing word games.

Because such an "automatic" is not normally used in commercial
setups.

that means your knowledge about networks is limited.

Yeah, sure. Keep trying kid.

you didn't know what automatic meant and you think all base stations
have vertically polarized antennas.

your knowledge is clearly limited.

It may sound good to home owners, but it's not a good
idea at all.

it's actually a very good idea because most people have no idea what
channel to pick and will probably leave it at the default, which means
everyone will be on the same default channel and cause more problems
for each other.

That's no worse that what you are proposing!

actually, it is.

having the selection be automatic spreads it out, without the user
having to figure out what to do. not everyone is a geek. most aren't.
even many of those who are geeks probably don't know what to pick.

All it has to be is a default to an "auto" mode that switches
between only three channels unless some other option in chosen.

Simple, easy...

except when that doesn't work.

Whatever, if it does not allow restricting the AP to
*only* channels 1, 6 and one more greater than 9, it's
dumb.

wrong again.

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

You clearly haven't understood the significance of the bandwidth used
by a WIFI unit. Any other choices simply *increase* the interference.

nonsense.

Serious business actually.

anything 5 channels or more apart will not cause interference (actually
less in the real world but i'm sure you'll disagree). it certainly
won't increase it if you pick something other than the magic 3
channels.

Sigh. I drew a graphic and made a chart previously that showed *precisely*
what the channel separation is.

The simple fact is that yes it will increase interference if you choose
anything else.

it will not increase anything.

It makes no difference what your neighbors do,

it most certainly does.

choosing Channel 3 is
*never* a reasonable choice. Never!

absolutes always have exceptions.

Except in the real world.

particularly in the real world.

In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

It really is. Since everyone seems to allow their wifi station to pick
the channel (based possibly on the traffic at that time and then no
longer changing) I'm better off alone at 8 or 9. I get splashed to be
sure, but not near as bad as if I stay on 1, 6 or 11.

You get interference, if you choose Channel 8, from anyone that chooses
any channel from 4 to 12.

depends how far away they are.

No, it depends on the signal strength relative to the
desired signal.

which depends how far away they are.

If the signal strength for all other users total is
equal to greater than 6 dB less than the RSL of the
desired signal, you will have interference.

That is, if there is one signal on Channel 8 and it is
-6 dB or greater compared to your signal, you get
interference. If there are two signals they can both be
-9 dB below the desired signal, and you will get
interference. If there are four signals the threshold
is -12 dB, and so on.

If you choose Channel 11 the only other choices
that will affect you are those from 7 on up. All you have done by
choosing
Channel 8 is perhaps double the amount of interference.

based on that, then 1 and 11 can be the only choices.

Channels 1, 6 and 11 will not interfere with each other.

nobody said they would.

however, what *you* said is by picking 8, you get twice as much
interference than 11, so based on that, picking 6 is even worse.

choosing 6 means 2-10 can cause interference, which is almost the
entire band.

That is exactly the reason to assign 1, 6, and 11.

in an ideal world, yes.

unfortunately, in the real world it doesn't work that way.

When there's little other traffic I can xfer at a steady 48 to 64 Mbps.
When there's a lot of other stations up, it drops to less than 8 for
50% of the time and no better than 24 for the rest. (And often the rate
is in the handful of kB/s range).

It also depends a lot on one or 2 neighbors and whether they've got the
whole house on WiFI. From here I can see 8 other WiFi stations using
2.4 GHz WiFi - that translates to how many clients... 10, 20? More?

Not really. Compare the signal strengths and simply ignore anything that
is
10 dB lower than what your own signals are. Generally you'll find that
most
of the other stations you see on a scan are actually too weak to be of any
significance.

if they're too weak to be of significance, then it doesn't really
matter what channel you or anyone else picks, does it?

Not until someone close enough to actually have a
greater signals strength cranks up their AP, and then
you are toast if you picked the wrong channel!

no need to crank up anything.

in an apartment setting, a neighbor's base station could be as close as
just a few feet away if it's near a shared wall, or a little more in
the apartment directly overhead or below. what channels they pick
*will* be an issue.

in detached homes, the distances will obviously be greater so using the
same channels will likely not be an issue, although in some cities
houses are very close together so it could turn out to be a problem
anyway.

http://www.inhabitat.com/wp-content/uploads/sanfranciscovictorians.jpg

You can weasel all you like, but technically there is
only one right way: choose one of channel 1, 6 or 11.

no weaseling at all.

in an ideal world, sure, use 1, 6 and 11.

unfortunately, we don't live in an ideal world. well i don't, you seem
to think you do.

you see, in the real world, people pick channels *other* than those
three.

i just did a survey and right *now* i see networks on 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and
11.

based on their strengths, picking 1, 6 or 11 is *not* the best choice
for me.

that's the real world.

Wolfgang Weisselberg wrote:
Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
There
will never be a time when at least 10 or so clients are
not trying to get access.

And that's lowering the individual thoughput by a factor 400?
(WLAN netto speed, single user, 54 MBit/s brutto versus
dialup modem brutto speed of 33.6 kbit/s upload)

Yes. When none of the clients can get a connection, due to
repeated contention, there is *no* throughput for any client.

Unless one of them has a
received signal strength that is more than 6 dB greater
than the sum of the others, the AP cannot detect a
single client.

The way it works:
Stations listen if the channel is free, and have random
timers (the more collisions, the larger) which cause most
packets to not be involved in a collision. (It's actually
more complicated than that, but read yourself ...)
http://www.comlab.hut.fi/studies/324...ot/4_wlan2.pdf

The upshot is: There's no "the sum of the others".

Yes there is. Now do some research on something called
"capture effect" with FM or PM modulated radio signals.

The functionality is on several levels, not just WIFI contention.
There are also colisions between clients transmitting at the same
time. If the AP has an RSL for one client that is 6 dB or more
above *all* other signals in the desired bandwidth, that client
will be accepted, otherwise the AP will not be able to detect
a usable signal from any of them.

In fact, even with a CW_{Backup} of only 32 (i.e. set for rather
few collisions, it can ramp up to 255) the chance of collision is
50% with 16 active stations and 63% with 35 active stations.[1]

So none of them get a connect, they all
time out and take a random sleep.

Only one will talk, and in most cases it will get through.
And if not on the first try, then on the second, third of fourth.

Wrong. Whatever makes you think "only one will talk"!
Every time there is a collision, the entire process
essentially starts over again. The chances never get any
better.

You are assuming that all clients can detect all other clients,
which is probably not true.

Of course by that
time another group is ready (after waiting for a random
period), and the story repeats itself.

Yep, all the group of 10+ clients has each RANDOMLY choosen one
and the same period of time --- and will do so every time!

That's why it's called RANDOM!

And that is exactly why if fails too.

Eventually luck
might allow one client to connect. That is going to work
to some degree up to 4 clients per channel, but with more
than that the chances of any client actually getting a
connection start to be very slim.

So how exactly do you arrive at 4 clients per channel?

Pulling data from your ass?

Get you head out of yours.

Especially when 4-5 clients give the best combined throughput
rate for TCP traffic for a 54 MBit connection?[1]

You did pull them out of your ass, didn't you?

Get you head out of it...

In fact, 48 *active* clients on 3 channels have a combined
throughput of 45 MBit/s of data (with all the TCP overhead and
WLAN overheads and timeouts and retries and collisions already
taken care off), so each PJ has 960 kbit/s.[1]
A modem is 33.6 kbit/s.

Do your math ...

Learn how it works.

Instead there will virtually always be
contention, and instead of being 4 times faster than a
dialup, it would probably be about 10 times slower... at
best!

So 3 channels at 54 MBit/s can't keep up with 48 clients which
sporadically try to pass data through them to the outside.

Correct.

Hmmm. [1] says something very different.

You apparently didn't read what you are citing.

He
http://serverfault.com/questions/192...le-wifi-router
is someone connecting 60 iPads over 3 channels.

We can find somebody somewhere who said almost anything on
the Internet, but that doesn't make it correct.

Regardless, just like the other URL, you don't seem to have
actually read the article you cite!

Whom to believe? Those who have facts and others that have mathematical
models congruent with yet other people's tests and experiences,
or ... you ...?
Tough question, innit?
But then maybe you do get 48-PJ-news conferences pretty regular
up in Barrow ... who knows?

I see.

Probably not, because you don't seem to know how it works or why
and have no interest in learning eitehr.

I'll await your "OK, I *was* completely wrong on all of my
claims, including the WiFi and the learning!" admission.

See, you haven't learned anything!

[1] http://paper.ijcsns.org/07_book/201207/20120704.pdf

You *really* should read that paper and try to understand
the significance of what it says!

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

you didn't know what automatic meant and you think all base stations
have vertically polarized antennas.

I certainly don't know what *anything* means to *you*!

And yes, virtually all base stations ahve vertically
polarized antennas.

having the selection be automatic spreads it out, without the user
having to figure out what to do. not everyone is a geek. most aren't.
even many of those who are geeks probably don't know what to pick.

All it has to be is a default to an "auto" mode that switches
between only three channels unless some other option in chosen.

Simple, easy...

except when that doesn't work.

What do you mean it does't work? It would work far better than
randomly picking just any channel.
Sigh. I drew a graphic and made a chart previously that showed *precisely*
what the channel separation is.

The simple fact is that yes it will increase interference if you choose
anything else.

it will not increase anything.

Just interference.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

nospam wrote:
In article , Floyd L. Davidson
wrote:

you can't control what neighbors do. sometimes picking something other
than 1, 6 or 11 is the only option.

It really is. Since everyone seems to allow their wifi station to pick
the channel (based possibly on the traffic at that time and then no
longer changing) I'm better off alone at 8 or 9. I get splashed to be
sure, but not near as bad as if I stay on 1, 6 or 11.

You get interference, if you choose Channel 8, from anyone that chooses
any channel from 4 to 12.

depends how far away they are.

No, it depends on the signal strength relative to the
desired signal.

which depends how far away they are.

Any given station can be farther away but also have
a much stronger signal level.

If the signal strength for all other users total is
equal to greater than 6 dB less than the RSL of the
desired signal, you will have interference.

That is, if there is one signal on Channel 8 and it is
-6 dB or greater compared to your signal, you get
interference. If there are two signals they can both be
-9 dB below the desired signal, and you will get
interference. If there are four signals the threshold
is -12 dB, and so on.

If you choose Channel 11 the only other choices
that will affect you are those from 7 on up. All you have done by
choosing
Channel 8 is perhaps double the amount of interference.

based on that, then 1 and 11 can be the only choices.

Channels 1, 6 and 11 will not interfere with each other.

nobody said they would.

however, what *you* said is by picking 8, you get twice as much
interference than 11, so based on that, picking 6 is even worse.

It is true that picking 8 will get twice as much
interference, and that is not true of 11.

choosing 6 means 2-10 can cause interference, which is almost the
entire band.

That is exactly the reason to assign 1, 6, and 11.

in an ideal world, yes.

No, in very practical world. That is the only way to
get three clear channels operating at one time. If you
choose Channel 8, it there can't be more than two
channels operating without interference.

unfortunately, in the real world it doesn't work that way.

Clearly it does.

if they're too weak to be of significance, then it doesn't really
matter what channel you or anyone else picks, does it?

Not until someone close enough to actually have a
greater signals strength cranks up their AP, and then
you are toast if you picked the wrong channel!

no need to crank up anything.

Yes, if it is turned off then it won't interfere with
you. But most people install these devices to actually
use them.

in an apartment setting, a neighbor's base station could be as close as
just a few feet away if it's near a shared wall, or a little more in
the apartment directly overhead or below. what channels they pick
*will* be an issue.

Exactly. So choosing the most efficient channel
assignment pattern is significant.

in detached homes, the distances will obviously be greater so using the
same channels will likely not be an issue, although in some cities
houses are very close together so it could turn out to be a problem
anyway.

That is not necessarily true. These "shared wall"
situations, and equally likely with overhead/below
circumstances, often mean very lossy transmission paths.

It isn't generally just a matter of "distance". And
often the distance traveled by the signal is not
actually a direct line of sight anyway. Almost any wall
causes significant loss at 2400MHz, and almost any
metalic surface larger than an inch or so will reflect
the signals too. Hence you may think, for example, that
the signal you are picking up from the appartment above
you is traveling 10 to 15 feet through the ceiling when
in fact the path is in/out the (lossless) windows and
bouncing off the foil backing on the insulation in the
wall (or a metal sign attached to it) of the building
across the street!

WIFI does strange things.

You can weasel all you like, but technically there is
only one right way: choose one of channel 1, 6 or 11.

no weaseling at all.

Won't be when you stop...

in an ideal world, sure, use 1, 6 and 11.

In a practical world, that is the right choice.

you see, in the real world, people pick channels *other* than those
three.

And my point is that it does *not* improve their service.

i just did a survey and right *now* i see networks on 1, 2, 3, 6, 9 and
11.

based on their strengths, picking 1, 6 or 11 is *not* the best choice
for me.

that's the real world.

Let me say it again: use one of 1, 6 or 11 for best results.

Use something else if results aren't what you want, but
emotional yada yada is a good substitute.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)